cannot post any more - just got a timing flower thing in the main area, and can't find out how to get rid of it. Sorry. Will have to go back to blog.co.uk

Monday 30 January - thought I had the diet sussed, but an Everton Mint does not do it for me as an evening meal...

Okay so I’ve got it sussed (I think).

 

 

I figure that life is too short to be calorie counting all the while, so in future I will eat all the bad stuff in the morning, early on, and then depending on how bad it has been, I will tailor that day’s exercise to suit … and I will aim to stop eating from mid-afternoon onwards to give the old tum a chance to recover.

With this in mind I had apple crumble and custard for breakfast, heated up in the microwave at work and nibbled on throughout the morning whilst working out people’s rent payments.    Well, it caused quite a stir I can tell you … the sharp smell of apples mingled with the sweet smell of crumble had people hovering around my desk like a plague of locusts, and more than one person sneaked back with a teaspoon to have a swift poke around in my Tupperware box and extract a mouthful of my lovely treaty breakfast for themselves!

That said, I still had quite a large portion … and oooooh, it was lovely while it lasted.

Unfortunately, the cheese salad that followed 4 hours later was paltry in comparison, and the two tomatoes sliced to cover (just about) one measly slice of toast in the evening was positively demoralising.  

Went for a dog walk afterwards to take my mind off of food and made an Everton mint last for the whole 45 minute circuit by sucking on it as gently as possible.

Then went off to bed with my tummy rumbling and decided that eating all the bad stuff together and then nibbling like a rabbit for the rest of the day is simply not my style.

Will rethink the entire diet tomorrow…

Sunday 29 January - a pudding (or three)

Ooops. Yesterday was clearly such an ‘easy peasy’ day that I completely forgot about buying a pudding for today’s lunch. 

Hastily defrosted some of last autumn’s apples (fallen from my aunt’s tree and conveniently peeled, chopped, blanched and bagged up just for me – how lucky is THAT??) and knocked up a quick crumble. Was looking forward to treating myself to a small portion as a Sunday treat, when along comes mother and Auntie (today’s lunch invitées) – both clutching puddings of their own ….  Mother’s was an enormous home made summer pudding (made with brioche in lieu of bread and laced with grand marnier) and Auntie's was a Marks and Spencers fresh raspberry and cream trifle.

 

 

OMG.

Suffice it to say the diet was put on hold from 2pm onwards…..

BAD DAY!

Saturday 28 January - an iced bun versus a full English .... hmmmm ....

Good day today.

But only because I woke with back-ache - those ballet moves on Thursday are responsible, I swear it.

H'anyways ... the constant discomfort actually made me lose my appetite, so it wasn't all bad was it?

 That said, I did have a big sticky iced bun in the afternoon…. I usually buy cakes for a treat on Saturdays when I’m out doing my food shop.  It has become a bit of a ritual now… baked beans, toilet rolls, cakes from the baker, library books (obviously I don’t BUY those) .. back home again, unpack at the double whilst multi-taskingly knocking up a fried breakfast for the guv……… then when that’s dished up I'm free of all chores till bedtime .....happy days!

So today then…. I made the breakfast and then walked the dog over the woods to stretch my aching back a bit, then came back and had a nice snooze on the sofa, a read of my library books, and then finally at 4pm, a big sticky bun. 

Apart from that though, it was just fruit today – satsumas, apple, pear, bananas, soft prunes, grapes … and then a small bowl of alpen at night. 

Look the bun was bad, I accept that. But it could have been worse - I could have joined the guv and had a cooked breakfast like he did!

So which has more calories I ask you ..... surely it can't be the bun??? (please god)

Friday 27 January 2012 - the Friday wash ...with a bit of a twist.

Dog walk this morning. Tried stretching out my strides and swinging my arms higher and higher – but only when I was on the little lane behind our house where I was unlikely to be seen from any house windows (please God).

Came home and emptied the washing machine with a little twist today – the twist being that I took one garment out at a time, hopped all round the kitchen table with it, folded it (while still on one leg) and popped it into the washing basket.

Had to repeat the process 34 times because that's how much some silly beggar had put into the machine. 

Resolved to have a word with the household tonight and tell them not to overfill the washing machine ever again.

Resolved also to instruct myself not to play the hopping game if the machine appears to be full of everyone's smalls.

After all.

a joke is a joke.

And that wasn't one.

 

Time for my medication me thinks....

 

 

 

Food today.

2 bananas, 1 apple, 2 pieces of ginger in syrup.

Lump of cheese with 4 water biscuits (between 9am and 11am)

Another 4 lumps of Toblerone.

Baked risotto with edam cheese and tomatoes (large bowl) (about 2.30pm)

One doughnut – the whole thing .. it just sort of disappeared down my throat. (4pm)

Thursday 26 January - I discover that the ironing board does not make a good ballet 'barre'

Oooh I do love that hollow goodie two shoes feeling I get when I wake up with an empty belly.

No dog walk this morning as it was raining, but I did get on my hands and knees and scrub the hall and stair carpet with some fabric softener. Lovely smell and I worked up quite a sweat doing it (which probably ruined the lovely smell) but it was good exercise anyway.

Biked to work and that was harder than usual as one of my tyres has a slow puncture at the moment so it’s like pushing through mud most of the time.

 

 

Food today:

2 bananas, cherry tomatoes,  (morning)

Lump of cheese with 3 water biscuits (morning)

4 humps of Toblerone (Xmas present – I’m making it last!!) (10am)

1 vegetarian rissole with mashed potatoes and frozen mixed veg (about 2pm)

Nothing more to eat after 2pm.

In the evening I used my ironing board as a “barre” and pretended to be a ballerina

.......  until my body gave way and I ended up in a heap like a broken doll on the bedroom floor, clutching a bit of my leg (the tibia or fibia or some such) and promising never to subject it to such agony again. After that I decided to use the ironing board for its proper purpose, but ensured I executed more exaggerated ironing strokes for additional exercise.  How good am I?

Also took the hound for a walk but it was bitterly cold out and I forgot to take my hat so had to hold fingers in my ears halfway round to prevent earache.  It did look a bit ridiculous so I cut the walk short by one block in the end and came home.

Not a bad day’s work though – n’est pas?

 

 

Wednesday 25 January - no food after 2pm!!! The key to success!

Okay – back on track again today – well sort of…..

Good news was that I did stop eating at 2pm and not another morsel passed my lips after that.

Bad news was that what I ate up till 2pm could hardly be called ‘healthy’ ….

2 bananas

Large bag of chips (someone from work goes to the chippy every Wednesday – it’s the midweek treat)

Yoghurt

Several pieces of chopped stem ginger in syrup (can this be classed as my 5 a day I wonder – I had 15 pieces at least!!)

By 7pm I was still comfortably full. 

The weather was mild and damp but still okay for a dog walk.

Had a sort out of my wardrobe and drawers afterwards in the hope that the sight of summer shorts and tops would keep me away from the cake cupboard.  It worked!  Bed at 11pm feeling empty.  But as always when I feel empty I sleep so much better!  Joy!

Monday 23 January

What is wrong with me!

Gave myself a stern talking to last night and was determined to behave again today … but stupidly I didn’t actually do anything to ensure I WOULD behave (such as put together a healthy packed lunch), so in the event, I quickly made toast and marmalade and wrapped it in foil to take to work for breakfast.  Disaster - as of course that was my starter for ten …… I munched through that, didn’t feel particularly satisfied, so then started chomping through a large bag of Wotsits (I mean seriously – what planet am I on today) which I found in a cardboard box on top of our office Christmas decorations.

At lunchtime I had 3 Ryvitas with butter, cheese and Branston Pickle on top, but then, just as I was leaving the house to go back to work for the afternoon, I grabbed a handful (about a dozen if I’m honest) of Heroes chocolates (again from Christmas) and stuffed them in my coat pocket and then ate through the lot in the afternoon, despite telling myself I’d make them last the whole week.

In the evening I had jacket potato with salad which sounds quite saintly, until I admit that I swamped the potato with butter and probably about 4oz of grated cheese on top.

Paid for a disastrous day by going to bed feeling like an oven ready turkey and tossed and turned all night long!

 

 

Sunday 22 January - Roses, not so much growing on me, as IN me!

Good in the morning. Small bowl of cereal, and lots of vigorous housework. Even a bit of gardening today!

Lunch was at mums :

Beef tomato stuffed with couscous and vegetables

Roast potatoes x 3

Steamed veg

Gravy … all was going well until I succumbed to one slice of (home made) bread and butter, which quickly turned into three bits of bread and butter, all mopping up the gravy juices on my plate.

Pudding was apple and custard streudal with custard, and as I was the one dishing up, there was no excuse at all for my cutting myself the same sized slice as everyone else.  Disappointed with this, I went home and spent most of the evening dipping into the Christmas box of Roses...

 

 

 

What hope is there???

Saturday 21 January - it's the meals out that wreck the diet!

Okay.

Not doing bad now.  Still not brilliant.

Shopped in the morning and resisted my usual treat of a cream cake at the baker!  Had a banana instead. How saintly was that.

Went to the library and took out a selection of cookery books and some on Slimming. One was the Hay Diet which was all the rage in the 70’s and looked quite simple … well, pages 1 – 7 did anyway. After that and when alkaline started looking similar to both protein and carbs but is apparently neither, I got confused and had a bag of crisps to help me focus.

Couldn’t get back to the ‘no food after mid-afternoon’ rule today, as we were off out for a meal with the in-laws. Very nice it was too, fish and chips and then sticky toffee pudding with home made custard.  Oh how bad am I.  I was stuffed at the end of the meal and wish so much I’d have opted for something lighter and healthier. Will I ever learn??

Thursday 19 January - it was the sloppy lasagne that blew it guv'nor.

Okay I admit it. I’ve had a disastrous couple of days since I last posted.

Why does it happen?  

You lose weight, you feel a million dollars .. and you immediately celebrate by putting the whole lot back on again and then some!!!

Okay, so some of it was unavoidable.

We had visitors on Tuesday and last night.  Last night I cooked a massive lasagne and intended having only a smidgeon of it due to the calorie content … but kid II and best friend dished up, and to say their serving skills need something to be desired is something of an understatement – and that’s putting it mildly.

 

 

Once they’d retrieved the portion from my kitchen table they were in no mood to be asked for a smaller slice that which was on the fish slice, so I ended up with the same plate load as everyone else … and come on now…. You’re not going to make me believe for one instant that you are strong willed enough to leave half your dinner on your plate if you are ravenous from multiple stair-climbing all day and famished.

Must try harder.

Monday 16 January - going down!!

I lied yesterday. The yoghurt WAS seen again.

It was seen again as soon as the heating came on in fact, as it melted and reappeared on the carpet in a bright peach coloured heap. But on the bright side, I took the opportunity to do 27 press ups while I was flat on the floor mopping up the mess. It was supposed to have been 50 press ups but I’m not as young as I once was, so decided that 30 would be ample, and then I lowered that target again to 25 when it looked as though I might just expire if I continued on past 21 press-ups.

So really, to get to 27 wasn’t bad at all.

Well. That’s what I though anyway.

The good news today is that I now weigh 11 stone 9lb.    If only I could say it was entirely down to frozen grapes and yoghurts then I could patent both and make a fast buck.

But alas, the truth is that boring old Ryvitas and cheese in lieu of hefty doorstep bread cheese sarnies, and fruit instead of bars of chocolate, have played a big part in this recent surprising news from the scales.

Sunday 15 January - a mishap with a yoghurt and a screwdriver ...

Okay, so maybe freezing yoghurts is not such a good idea as freezing grapes. Especially when you’re peckish and in need of fortification.

I ripped the lid off of a Muller Peach Melba  and then couldn’t break into the ruddy thing, not with a teaspoon, a tablespoon, a nail file, or a metal coat hanger…… in the end I lost patience, gave a jolly good stab at it with himself’s screw driver, and the whole lot flew out as one solid lump, shot across the room, and promptly got wedged  behind the radiator, never to be seen again.

Saturday 14 January - a little fiasco in the supermarket, but I got through it.

Quite impressed with the grape idea I have to say.  Had a little Tupperware tub of them in my handbag today and kept popping them all the way round Sainsburys.  By the time I got to the checkout my mouth was full of grapes to the point where I looked as though I had mumps!   I told the checkout girl about the tip and she was impressed and lent backwards and told the checkout girl on the next till about it. They are both going to give it a go apparently. 

While she was leaning backwards I noticed I’d spat a slither of grape skin on her orange overall. Luckily enough when she lent forwards again her hair brushed it off of her overall and onto the conveyor belt, and I stuck a thumb on top of it quickly and removed it.  Phew.

Very good day dietwise.  Mostly comprising frozen grapes.  I’m hooked on them now.

 

 

Friday 13 January - frozen grapes and yoghurts

Back on track today.

Porridge before going to work.

One big banana cut into slices as I needed them (which was often) and nibbled on all morning.

Large Jacket potato with cream cheese and baked beans for lunch – bit dry.

2 finger Kit-kat in the afternoon.

Cheese omelette and salad for tea.

Grapes in the evening. 

I read a tip somewhere that if you freeze grapes they taste just like chewy sweets and if you freeze yoghurt it tastes a lot creamier, just like an indulgent ice-cream.

 

 

 

Sounds good to me….. must be less calories than having the biscuit tin on my lap all evening surely.  I popped a large bunch of grapes in the freezer along with a few yoghurts and the cellotaped up the biscuit tin.

The guv laughed (not!)

Thursday 12 January - does anyone out there like cottage cheese??

I am trying to warm to cottage cheese, but to be honest it’s just not happening.

So far I’ve tried the versions with garlic, with pineapple and with chives and it still looks and tastes like sick.  £3 down the drain this week so far, and that’s likely to increase as I’m also trying to enamour myself to plain yoghurt but don’t hold out much hope.

On the exercise front at work, I have taken to continually lifting and lowering the waste paper bin between my ankles to coincide with every call I take.  If it’s a short call it’s fine. Unfortunately if it’s a longer one then it’s a little trickier and in fact one tenant did sympathise with me today and tell me that she too suffers with emphysema and had I tried raw egg, because it certainly works for her.

Hmmm.  I wonder if raw egg helps with slimming as well as emphysema.  It can’t be any more revolting than cottage cheese or plain yoghurt surely?

Food today:

Toast with a scrape of marmite for breakfast.

2 bananas

1 fruit yoghurt

4 ryvitas with the briefest scraping of various varieties of cottage cheese (the rest was dumped in the bin)

Jacket potato with tuna (no butter) and a big mixed salad.

One bite of pizza (left on himself’s plate – waste not want not).

Bowl of Alpen with dates and bananas on top plus 5 chocolate drops (kid II put these on as she thought I was trying to make a pattern on top of the cereal…)

Half a Bounty Bar – it was kid II’s fault, she gave me the taste for chocolate.

Bed time now.

I am knackered.

I had to run 60 times up and down the flipping stairs in order to eat the chocolate drops, pizza and Bounty.

Himself said: ‘nevermind your figure woman, think of my hall carpet!’.

Honestly. There’s no pleasing some people is there!

Monday 9 January - I mean business now!

After a disastrous start – not a bean lost so far – I am stepping up the action this week.

My plan is this.  Before eating any treat I will force myself to run up and down the stairs 20 times. I’m serious.

No treats eaten today.

Sunday 8 January 2012 - and the weight loss so far is ..... ???

Woke up with a nice empty feeling today.  Loads of energy and am I imagining it or does my tum look flatter?

Put my MP3 on and took the hound for a king-sized walk very early, because rain was forecast for later on.

Don’t know what came over that mutt but one minute I was merrily singing along to Katherine Jenkins, and the next minute, the dog did a kamikaze dive towards the wheels of a double decker bus trundling up the road towards us. 

 Okay, so I admit, I was just attempting a bit of harmonising with Katherine when it happened …  and okay again, maybe I WAS just slightly out of key … but god, what a diva-ish overreaction from the hairy thing on four legs!

Mother came for lunch today.  I told Himself to grab her scales when he picked her up, but in the event he forgot, and I ended up having to weigh myself when I dropped her home again at the end of the day - by which time I’d had a roast lunch and some apple pie and custard for pud, and then a Magnum ice-cream which Mother dearest treated me to at the local garden centre in the afternoon.

As a result of the above, I regret to say that my net weight loss so far is, umm.  Zero.

Saturday 7 January - The weekends are easier ....

The weekends are easier.

In the week, I spend 7 hours a day chained to a desk with a headset clamped to my skull doing customer-servicey type work like advising people what to do about wasps nests, fallen fences, rent arrears or transfers.

I work for a Housing Association in the Customer Services Team… a bunch of real gannets we are – a “pod” of 6 of us with two desks at the end of the pod designed to hold all of our forms and stationery, but which in fact is usually stacked high with nibbles and treats to get us through the day.  It’s not conducive to slimming let me tell you.  A nightmare.

Today though – no work.  I had food shopping to do first thing, but packed 3 rich tea biscuits into a little biscuit holder thingie I got from Lakeland Plastics (99p – what a bargain) and ate these in the check-out queue in Asda when cake cravings threatened to get the better of me).

Came home and made he-who-must-be-obeyed his usual all-day-fry-up. 

Decided to fill myself up at the same time on the basis that if I eat once, now, (now being 11am) then maybe I wont keep running to the fridge all day long and grazing!   

So!  With this (lovely) thought in mind, I had two toasted doorstep sized slices of Asda fresh bread, topped with oodles of baked beans, into which I grated a lot of cheddar cheese … and then zapped in the microwave for 30 seconds so that the cheese was all gooey and stringy.

OMG it was so scrummy.   Heaven knows how many calories were in that little lot, but guess what? It worked!!! I didn’t eat anything else all day long, and didn’t feel remotely peckish until about 8pm, at which point it was easy to ignore the pangs, have a bath, read my library book and go to bed – more peckish but not keeling over – at 10.30pm.

Friday 6 January 2012 - dining out on a diet .. no slip ups for me!

Out for dinner this evening – my friend’s birthday. 

Boy was I saintly.

They had a special offer running – 2 courses for £11, dinner and pudding.

But they didn’t catch me!

No sirreeee.

I had one course for £8.99 and left it at that. 

Fish cakes, jacket potato and salad.

I read a tip somewhere which said that if you constantly jiggle your ankles then you speed up your metabolism.  So I spent the whole meal jiggling my ankles and hope to have saved a few calories in the process!

Pretty impressed with myself tonight.

Other food today:

Bowl of coco-pops before leaving for work (I had a chocolate craving).

One cream cheese sandwich with cucumber and lettuce (no butter) at 10am (I had food cravings in general).

Carrot slices. Tomatoes. One apple. One pear. One banana. (didn’t have fruit or veg. cravings but this was all that was left in my bag).

Half a doughnut in the afternoon - it wasn’t my fault … they were plonked on the end of our pod within sniffing distance – I mean what is a girl to do??.  I resisted eating the whole doughnut, but admit I scooped out all of the jam before binning one half.

Goodish-but not perfect.

Thursday 5 January 2012 - housework to music .. it's cheaper than the gym

Getting up at 6.30am now instead of 7am. How saintly am I?

I don’t even bother to wash, just grab the dog’s lead and get straight out for a brisk walk and to buy the newspaper.

Did some more cleaning in the lounge when I got back.   The traffic jam building up outside must have wondered what the hell I was doing, as I decided to clean the tiny leaded-light window pains in a circular motion in time to Phantom of The Opera which unfortunately did look as though I was waving at everyone …. .I could swear one young whipper-snapper gave me the finger before driving off…!

Very rude.

Two bananas for breakfast today.  And a cup-o-soup – cream of vegetables with croutons (so probably not the low cal version)

4 Ryvitas with butter, cheese and red-onion relish for lunch.

4 plums, 4 satsumas. 6 squares of Galaxy chocolate.

Alpen for tea again with banana on top.

Then a bag of crisps late evening.

Wednesday 4 January 2012 - the first weigh in ....

You know the diet is working when you get a raging headache and a horrible metal taste in the mouth. 

Woke up with both today. Yippee.

Walked extra fast and a bit farther with the dog this morning. 

Polished the lounge whilst dancing vigorously to my new SuBo CD (Christmas present from kid II).  Then left for work.

Ryvitas and cheese at 11am. I know it’s the same as yesterday, but routine seems to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Carrot sticks looking like miniature leaning towers of Piza today. Definitely on the turn. Couldn’t face the humus so had 2 scottish all butter shortcake biscuits from the office goodie tin instead.   Not good but not the end of the world either.   120 calories each.  How many calories in humus by comparison I wonder ….? 

Can’t be bothered to look it up and compare actually, in case it’s bad news.

A bowl of Alpen for tea with 5 dates stuck on top.   Yum. I love dates.  These dates were actually 11 days “out of date” according to the sticky label on the box, but it was covering up the calorie content which I took to be a good omen, so I decided to eat them anyway.

Live dangerously, that’s my motto!

Went to mother’s in the evening and got a shock to find I am a hefty 12 stone 1lb according to her scales. Surely that can’t be right?  They are old Boots ones, circa 1970.  Personally I think they’re a bit ‘out’.  I was going to put them in the wheelie bin, but mother told me that even if they are ‘out’ they will still record what you lose when you’re dieting and this is all  you need to know really …  n’est pas?  

(my mother says n’est pas a lot.  She is French).

 Hmmmm.

These pensioners can be quite bolshy at times can’t they?

Tuesday 3 January 2012 - definitely starting today.....

Right. Action stations.

Back to work. Biked in. Biked home at lunch time. Biked back again. And Biked home in the evening.  (it sounds good but it’s actually only 10 minutes each way and all on the flat!).

Got soaked by some idiot in a 4 x 4 who I swear drove through a whacking great puddle on purpose, just to see me get soaked.

As a result, my bag (and the Ryvitas in it) were slightly soggy by the time I retrieved them (some hours later when I started to get peckish).

Still ate them though .. needs must and all that.

My diddy little carrot sticks were tasteless (not surprising really, they are over a week old – why did I think we’d need 2 kilo’s of carrots for Christmas dinner??!) and the humus to go with them was too hot. I chose it because it was knocked down to 80p a pot in Asda, but I’d omitted to notice that it was humus with chilli – that’s possibly why they knocked it down. Probably no one liked it.

Ate 5 satsumas in the afternoon. Not because I needed them but because they were definitely starting to disintegrate and I do hate wasting food.

Bowl of Weetabix for dinner.

And that was my lot.

Not bad eh?

I am going to mother's tomorrow evening for a natter, so I will take the opportunity to hop onto her scales while I'm there....I don't possess scales here. I did once. But I threw them in the wheelie bin when I didn't like the numbers they would keep displaying.

Monday 2 January 2012 - and so we begin. Or don't.

Okay. My New Year’s Resolution this year is to record what I eat and hopefully shame myself into changing my habits and losing some blubber.

It’s long overdue – I’m in my 50’s now and year on year I seem to get a bit blobbier and a bit wider in girth …

Plus, it gets harder as the years go by to lose it!

Oh I can still see my toes (not sure I can still touch them mind you) and I don’t get out of puff yet when I run up the stairs.

But some of my friends who are slightly heavier than me are starting to get pains in their hips and knees now – I dread the thought of being in pain and losing any mobility – hence this blog and the determination to step up to the mark and do something constructive!

Ahem….. not today mind you ……  today is a bank holiday and we have friends coming round for lunch.

I’ll start tomorrow …

LOOK IT IS NEW YEAR YOU KNOW!!!!